47.StarCraft

49%

Video games are just a silly hobby, right? Not so in South Korea, where StarCraft is a professional sport and pro gamers are both worshiped and well paid. Although other cultures may not have fully grasped how important military sci-fi strategy games are, gamers worldwide enjoy pitting StarCraft’s humans (a/k/a Terrans) against the two other alien races — the Protoss and the Zerg — in a battle for dominance. Most fans have upgraded from the original 1998 version to 2010’s StarCraft II., a gorgeous and equally life-consuming update. Given SC’s current rate of success, Blizzard is sure to strike gold with this franchise for decades to come. _Haldan Smith